The Power of Creativity
Our home is full of creativity. I love to write and lead my kids in art projects or science experiments. I'm not afraid of dirt. We go through reams of paper monthly for all the drawings and paintings my children randomly make. Most of my kids were painting before they could talk. I'd prop them up in their highchairs with a paintbrush and let them go to town.
Music is another thing that we've always had. My husband bought a nice digital piano before we had kids. Each of our babies would sit on the bench "playing" the piano from the time they were tiny. Funny thing is my husband only plays chords and I don't play at all. Yet, our appreciation of music still stands. He would regularly find music to his favorite praise song and play and sing as we worshiped God together as a family.
We are constantly making up songs. We could make our own youtube parody songs, but we haven't recorded any yet. We just walk around the house singing most days instead of talking. I often joke that we live in a musical.
When we first met our newest daughter I was amazed at how much she loved to draw and paint. Granted her paintings looked like a toddlers scribbles but the point was she loved it. It held her attention and captivated her. It didn't matter if it was tempera, stamping, water color or just coloring she was a born artist. She went from scribbles to flowers, cats and people rapidly. She loves to draw cats. When I saw her love of art of thought, "She sure fits right in!"
As for singing, this child loves to sing. She's constantly humming. She sings to herself and makes up songs and sometimes we have to beg her to be quiet for just a few minutes, because she seems to be constantly making noise. This too made me laugh as she first joined our family.
My bio kids all loved art and music and all had names ending in the "ah" sound. It amazed me how she fit perfectly into all these areas. It was another proof for me that she was indeed our little missing puzzle piece.
I have also seen the therapeutic effect of art and music on her. It's calming. To sit and paint or draw comes her down. It allows her to express herself and it gives her a focused thing to work on. When she first came to us she only knew a few real songs. Each song we taught her she loved and clung too. For weeks she was singing Rudolph followed by 10 Little Monkeys over and over and over again. I found the more songs we taught her the more her speech and vocabulary improved.
All of the kids take music lessons. I'm a firm believe in music. It truly effects the brain. Our kids all have Zunes which are the cheap version of an I-pod. They are filled with a variety of music. Some of the music is calming to listen to while falling asleep. Some of the music is upbeat to get them moving and in a better mood during the day. I have even found that listening to music while they do school work actually helps them to be more focused on their school and get done quicker. While I don't understand the science behind it, I've seen that music has helped my children in many ways.
When they aren't sure what to do during the day they usually end up at the piano playing music or making up their own songs. I believe that integrating art and music into each day has a positive effect on our children. We all know that we remember things set to music much better than random facts. If you have a child you realize they can quickly learn a song word for word. We like to use this to our advantage. We put math facts, president time lines, Bible verses all to music. They absorb the information and can recite it back at any time. I've also learned that art and music is a huge help in recovering from trauma.
To read more about music and the brain check out these articles. Science Daily, Frontiers in Psychology,
Music is another thing that we've always had. My husband bought a nice digital piano before we had kids. Each of our babies would sit on the bench "playing" the piano from the time they were tiny. Funny thing is my husband only plays chords and I don't play at all. Yet, our appreciation of music still stands. He would regularly find music to his favorite praise song and play and sing as we worshiped God together as a family.
We are constantly making up songs. We could make our own youtube parody songs, but we haven't recorded any yet. We just walk around the house singing most days instead of talking. I often joke that we live in a musical.
When we first met our newest daughter I was amazed at how much she loved to draw and paint. Granted her paintings looked like a toddlers scribbles but the point was she loved it. It held her attention and captivated her. It didn't matter if it was tempera, stamping, water color or just coloring she was a born artist. She went from scribbles to flowers, cats and people rapidly. She loves to draw cats. When I saw her love of art of thought, "She sure fits right in!"
As for singing, this child loves to sing. She's constantly humming. She sings to herself and makes up songs and sometimes we have to beg her to be quiet for just a few minutes, because she seems to be constantly making noise. This too made me laugh as she first joined our family.
My bio kids all loved art and music and all had names ending in the "ah" sound. It amazed me how she fit perfectly into all these areas. It was another proof for me that she was indeed our little missing puzzle piece.
I have also seen the therapeutic effect of art and music on her. It's calming. To sit and paint or draw comes her down. It allows her to express herself and it gives her a focused thing to work on. When she first came to us she only knew a few real songs. Each song we taught her she loved and clung too. For weeks she was singing Rudolph followed by 10 Little Monkeys over and over and over again. I found the more songs we taught her the more her speech and vocabulary improved.
All of the kids take music lessons. I'm a firm believe in music. It truly effects the brain. Our kids all have Zunes which are the cheap version of an I-pod. They are filled with a variety of music. Some of the music is calming to listen to while falling asleep. Some of the music is upbeat to get them moving and in a better mood during the day. I have even found that listening to music while they do school work actually helps them to be more focused on their school and get done quicker. While I don't understand the science behind it, I've seen that music has helped my children in many ways.
When they aren't sure what to do during the day they usually end up at the piano playing music or making up their own songs. I believe that integrating art and music into each day has a positive effect on our children. We all know that we remember things set to music much better than random facts. If you have a child you realize they can quickly learn a song word for word. We like to use this to our advantage. We put math facts, president time lines, Bible verses all to music. They absorb the information and can recite it back at any time. I've also learned that art and music is a huge help in recovering from trauma.
To read more about music and the brain check out these articles. Science Daily, Frontiers in Psychology,
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